Poems

The Folly I appreciate I’ve been not working hard I’ve been accused of haunting without spirit Always a proper subject at a dinner Always a diner eager to try himself Sorrowing eyes that by mid-course will make themselves Felt in the bones, couched in marbles in stucco “Ugly as sin,” smiles the […]

Edwytha’s Plait Terror, when it comes, warms the night Fallen close and hard of breath like a parachute’s muffling silk and chill Night Borne opaque the face of pity Mirrored in the watcher’s eye The plain below Sinking to the cataract Emerging hidden under rock Mimicking Edwytha’s plait The waters keen And he […]

Taste is Victory Taste is victory You may as well not look Chaos, my partridge, is like The eye of shame in poor attire Swiveling and cocking As with these fowls I carry to the village fair Feathers ruffle and each movement stirs the air Once I began to earn my pay […]

Crafting Poetry: Dissonance Dissonance can be a poet’s carefully deployed tool. We can achieve dissonance on the page, a visual effect, or—if the poem is read aloud—stage direction, using line drops, font shifts (large to small, bold to italic, black to barely legible), ambiguous punctuation, words abutted against other words, deliberate misspellings, puns. In “The […]

Part Two In his dreaming calculations lying wakeful He recalls himself, in this bed built for a dying wife Never so alive with fear for his charges He had always paid the roustabouts To guard the wagon, warned Tortu Whose wise and solemn eyes obey To take a crown and buy them cakes To […]

Paranoia Fixed in Corey Jack’s mind His paranoia, so-called A prophetic vibe he has known as a birthright The pictures given are all wreckage Windows busted out with a blackened lick of flame A rank of old acquaintance wasted, cause If you get the breaks you get a diploma A contract from the state […]

Elucidate You elucidate, I comprehend; I awake to your Destruction of my sin This illusion of the mortal vehemently dispelled Your ardor crosses the celestial sun The mistaken falter, are cast down Blood and gold Reaching, holding still You have contemplated me I have obtained grace End this time of trouble Finish, […]

To One in Paradise I was looking on Pinterest for material on Edgar Allan Poe. His poem “Alone” is popular there. What I consider Poe’s great talent, and what makes him worth studying, is that quick acceleration, shifting mood from memory, to melancholy musing, to sudden peril. “Ulalume” gives, arguably, […]

Field Marks What makes the clannist rich though he cries poor He never chooses his pleasures but enjoys them all His lustful wish is to be begged for help And refuse it She hears a crunch of shoes, a tuneless tune A male whistle. Those things, like coughs, can be told No, […]

Part NIne To a sheltering place Like a sea bird flown High where rays of sun make gentle Winter’s violent froth and foam He sees a lonely man below Whose feet set on a cliff’s edge stumble The fit passes, in commotion of known voices Pierre can’t stop them crowding past the tent […]